* Owen
Barfield, referring to the book:
A Theory of KnowledgeImplicit in Goethe's World
Conception, during a conversation at RudolfSteiner College in 1986, in response
the question of whether he (Barfield) hada book he read over and over again,
in the light of Steiner's remark that he would rather people read one book fifty
times, than read fifty books once.

by Joel A. Wendt

Consider, for a moment, that it might be possible to write a sentence,
using ordinary words, with the same precision and elegance of an
arithmetical equation written using the symbolism of pure
mathematics. Ponder that idea for a moment, and then take to
heart the suggestion of this article, that Rudolf Steiner wrote a whole
book that way, during the flowering genius of his mid-twenties: A
Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World Conception (Grundlinien
einer Erkenntnistheorie der Goetheschen Weltanschauung, 1886).

Is there a hidden treasure at the heart of anthroposophical Spiritual
Science? Let us consider the possibility. However, before
turning to the book, we should perhaps take a look at writing and
reading and meaning and words and sentences and such....

The writer thinks, and writes. The words on the page are not what
was thought, although an effort has been made (sometimes) to do just
that. Especially for anthroposophists, we know that the content
of cognitive activity is not always just a stream of words, what
we might call ordinary discursive thinking (the spirit speaks, the soul
hears). Matters transcendent of language can often be the content
of true cognition, after which the words on the page cannot then be
what
was originally perceived by the thinking. In such a case, the
words on the
page have to have another purpose.

We must read them, and in the act of reading do something more than
just passively let the concept content of the words on the page wash
over us. The words on the page are an entombment of the
experience of the writer, and we, as readers, must now bring about the
resurrection of this experience, which is something that often is
impossible when we consider the content about which Steiner has so
often lectured and written. How do we, for example, have more
than the most remote and abstract a concept of such an entity as
Archangel Michael?

This is a serious problem, but perhaps in seeking to solve it, we can
go to places in the World of Ideas we do not ordinarily go.

Consider a sentence - almost any sentence will do, so for example: "I
don't understand you."

The meaning seems obvious, but clearly it is not in the individual
words themselves. Our reading and thinking adds up the words into
what might be called the sentence's concept or meaning. This
meaning hovers over the sentence, and is not on the page, but only in
our own mind. Our active reading understands the sentence.
We can also enter more deeply into this process of understanding, and
with other sentences notice what might be called the picture quality of
the sentence. Perhaps it evokes an image in the mind, such as:
"And in the darkness the light is shinning and the darkness never got
hold of it."(John 1:5, the Unvarnished Gospels).

But even with that image quality, which evokes not just our
word-unifying thinking gesture leading to the understanding of meaning
but also the capacity we have for imagination, there is an even higher
quality toward which our knowledge-seeking can reach. Above even
the picture is the reasoning of the sentence, its logic or
logos-nature. Depending then upon the quality of thought of the
writer, the sentence has descended from its reasoning or logos-nature,
through a picture in the imagination, to the naked understanding of the
unity of the words. Could we say that this gesture is a descent
from the Christ Presence, via the Sophia Presence and into our I
consciousness presence? A difficult question, for few among us
knows these exalted Beings, or their relationship to writing and
reading.

Even so, in seeking to read Steiner, for example, do we not wish to
strive to rise from the spare unity of the meaning in the sentences,
through the picture quality to the logos-nature out of which they
descended? Well maybe, sometimes.

With a paragraph, a writer can create a set of ideas we have never
before encountered; that is take us into an aspect of the World of
Ideas (1) that is fresh and unique. Here is the opening paragraph
of
the writer Ursula K. LeGuin's novel: The Dispossessed:

"There was a wall. It did not look important. It was built
of uncut rocks roughly mortared. An adult could look right over
it, and even a child could climb it. Where it crossed the
roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a
line, an idea of boundary. But the idea was real. It was
important. For seven generations there had been nothing in the
world more important than that wall."

Now this is a book of fiction, of the imagination. What happens
if one is seeking to write a book about the mind, and the human being,
in such a way that a very accurate and coherent description arises in
the reader of processes the knowledge of which the reader has never
before been aware. There is no fiction in such a task, but it
certainly seeks to bring before us something as ephemeral as a work of
the imagination alone. The writer wants to guide us inward, into
and through our soul - our mind, into a territory that was previously
in darkness. At the same time the writer wants to do this with
the same full clarity of a work of science - to illuminate the
ephemeral aspects of mind and spirit with the precision and elegance of
a work of mathematics.

What an absolutely astonishing purpose!

Consider the structure of the themes as Steiner gave them in his book:
A Theory of Knowledge,
on what is typically called the contents page:

A. Preliminary Questions
I. The Point of Departure
II. Goethe's Science Considered According to the Method of
Schiller
III. The Function of this Branch of Science

B. Experience
IV. Definition of the Concept of Experience
V. Examination of the Content of Experience
VI. Correction of an Erroneous Conception of Experience as
a Totality
VII. Reference to the Experience of the Individual Reader

C. Thought
VIII. Thinking as a Higher Experience within Experience
IX. Thought and Consciousness
X. The Inner Nature of Thought

D. Knowledge
XI. Thought and Perception
XII. Intellect and Reason
XIII. The Act of Cognition
XIV. Cognition and the Ultimate Foundation of Things

In 1892, in between writing Theory and Philosophy, Steiner published
his PhD thesis: Truth
and Knowledge. Here is its contents page.

I. Preface

II. Introduction

III. Preliminary Remarks

IV. Kant's Basic Epistemological Question

V. Epistemology Since Kant

VI. The Starting Point of Epistemology

VII. Cognition and Reality

VIII. Epistemology Free of Assumptions and Fichte's Science of
Knowledge

IX. Epistemological Conclusion

X. Practical Conclusion

This book would seem to be a bridge between the Theory and Philosophy.

Now, just to be clear, it is not the point of this essay to set out an
argument suggesting Theory of Knowledge is a better book than The
Philosophy of Freedom (1894). To do so would be like comparing
apples and oranges. Something else is involved. Let us look
at the same structure of The Philosophy, so as
to see what that might
reveal:

Knowledge of Freedom
1. Conscious Human Action
2. The Fundamental Desire for Knowledge
3. Thinking in the Service of Knowledge
4. The World as Percept
5. The Act of Knowing
6. Human Individuality
7. Are there Limits to Knowledge?

The Reality of Freedom
8. The Factors of Life
9. The Idea of Freedom
10. Freedom-Philosophy and Monism
11. World Purpose and Life Purpose (The Ordering of Man's Destiny)
12. Moral Imagination (Darwinism and Morality)
13. The Value of Life (Optimism and Pessimism)
14. Individuality and Genius.

In Theory, the problem of Freedom is not mentioned until the third to
last chapter, while in the Philosophy it is where Steiner begins.
Both have, near their ends, chapters with more or less the same name:
Optimism and Pessimism. In the case of Theory, Steiner is trying
to explicate something he saw in the background of Goethe's mind and
will, but which Goethe had never articulated himself. In the
Philosophy, Steiner is going out on his own, and from a richer life of
inner spiritual experience, such that he says in 1908, in the 12th and
last of the lectures on the St. John Gospel, after defining katharsis
as the purification of the astral body so that it becomes capable of
imprinting the developing organs of clairvoyance on the ether body:

"A person can go very far in this
matter of katharsis if, for example,
he has gone through and inwardly experienced all that is in my book,
Philosophy of Freedom, and feels that this book was for him a
stimulation and that now he has reached the point where he can himself
actually reproduce the thoughts just as they were there
presented. If a person holds the same relationship to this book
that a virtuoso, in playing a selection on the piano, holds to the
composer of the piece, that is, he reproduces the whole thing within
himself - naturally according to his ability to do so- then through the
strictly built up sequence of thought of this book - for it is written
in this manner - katharsis will be developed to a high degree."

In Theory then we might say, we are led to knowing something
consciously, that had only lived instinctively in the will of Goethe,
while in the Philosophy we are brought even more consciously to the
highest possible pre-stage to initiation. Steiner continues, in
the St. John lectures, to say that all that is necessary at this point,
for the developed astral body now to imprint itself properly on the
ether body, is for the student to undertake meditative contemplation,
in the manner learned in the Philosophy, of the opening Chapters of the
John Gospel, beginning with: "In the beginning was the Word..." and
ending with "...full of devotion and truth." John 1: 1-14.

Why?

When the Philosophy lives in us in the right way, we stand on the
threshold where we are about to know Ideas as independent
realities. We participate in their arising in the soul's
consciousness (experience), but they (the Ideas) are nearly objectively
independent entities. Yet, for the final element of initiation to
arise there needs to be an Initiator, that is Christ, so we take the
skill learned in the Philosophy to nearly experience Ideas as
independently real, and then meditatively contemplate the opening
verses of the St. John Gospel, for in those Ideas we come upon the
spiritual garments of Christ in their most profound expression, such
that it is Christ who mets us and brings about the impression of the
seed organs of clairvoyance in the katharsis purified astral body into
and onto the ether body.

The Philosophy prepares us, and Christ takes us through the final step.

So then, what is the relationship between Theory and the
Philosophy? Or between the now consciously understood instinctive
will of Goethe and the Rite of Initiation fostered by Steiner? Is
the former trivial, or is there a very definite reason that in
Steiner's biography the one precedes the other? Could Steiner
have written the Philosophy without first thinking through and writing
Theory?

Many people find the Philosophy difficult. Some even suggest it
might be time to rewrite the Philosophy for modern times. The
problem here is clear, for in this suggestion we have the problem of
dumbing down, of meeting the laziness of the Age with a co-dependent
enabling gesture, as if struggle and effort are not part of spiritual
development. What would be the point of chopping the top off of
Mt. Everest so that it was easier to climb?

The fact is that no one would actually climb it (it isn't there
anymore), and that skill, only attainable through the effort, would be
lost. Rewriting the Philosophy would destroy the potential to do
the work needed to engage it, and in effect destroy the prelude to the
new thinking initiation. So then what do we do in response to the
obvious reality of difficulty so many find in the Philosophy?

Well, what we do is get our collective heads out of that place the sun
doesn't shine, and realize that Theory is the preparatory step for the
Philosophy - the work that exercises the basic inner thinking
capacities that are needed before tackling the real mountain.

Consider that in Theory, the problem of Freedom comes last, while in
the Philosophy it comes first. The problem of Freedom then is the
bridge between the two. Theory is the examination of the problem
of the relationship between thought and experience, from many sides,
and with respect to all sorts of implications once we understand what
is at stake. We need Theory to possess Goetheanism, which is the
ability to discipline thinking before the experience of
phenomena. We also need Theory's world view and the inspiration
which that view instills in us, in such ideas as:

"It is really the genuine, and indeed
the truest, form of Nature, which
comes to manifestation in the human mind, whereas for a mere
sense-being only Nature's external aspect would exist. Knowledge plays
here a role of world significance. It is the conclusion of a work of
creation. What takes place in human consciousness is the interpretation
of Nature to itself. Thought is the last member in a series of
processes whereby Nature is formed."

and...

"Man is not behaving in accordance
with the purposes of the Guiding
Power of the world when he investigates one or another of His
commandments, but when he behaves in accordance with his own
insight. For in him the Guiding Power of the world manifests
Himself. He does not live as Will somewhere outside of man, He
has renounced his own will in order that all might depend upon the will
of man. If man is to be enabled to become his own lawgiver,
all thought about world-determinations outside of man must be
abandoned."

This then prepares us for later appreciating in the Philosophy the
necessity behind Freedom, as well as the training regarding moral
imagination, moral intuition and moral technique. What Rudolf
Steiner lived in his biography, we can gain by following that same
path. He broke the trail, and now we can follow in trust.

Just as Nature speaks to us in a Goetheanistic manner concerning its
deeper truths, so does Steiner's biography speak to us of the deeper
truths of modern initiation.

First we get the Theory - the true concepts about mind, and then in the
Philosophy we get to practice, to look within (introspection) and
arrive at knowledge of mind. Once trained inwardly to an awake
relationship to the real nature of thinking, then we begin to
contemplate those thoughts which are the outer garment of
Christ. This will then show why Owen Barfield described
Theory as: the least read most
important book Steiner ever wrote.
We begin where our teacher began, and then faithfully follow him.

Let us now come at this from a slightly different direction in order to
deepen our appreciation.

Here is the often erroneously scorned Valentin Tomberg, from his
anthroposophical lectures collected under the title: The Four
Sacrifices of Christ and the Return of Christ in the Etheric:

"...the transition from all that is
most prosaic produced by the
nineteenth century to what the future holds is offered by the spiritual
manifestation of Goetheanism - Goetheanism is, in fact, a bridge on
which the transition can be made from the quantitative thinking of the
nineteenth century to a qualitative characterizing
thinking. Now where this transition leads is Spiritual
Science. Here it is not only a matter of being able to think
qualitatively, but of placing the moral element in the thinking into
the foreground. And by way of comparison, one could say that
Goetheanism is related to Anthroposophy, to Spiritual Science, in the
same way as the organic world is related to the soul world. The organic
calls for qualitative thinking; the soul world, for the formation of
moral concepts."

In Theory we are introduced to this qualitative characterizing thinking
- that is the picture thinking that adds nothing to its experience of
the phenomena. This organic thinking gesture is necessary in
order for thinking to penetrate the living aspects of nature, of the
social organism and of all manner of organic and living aspects of
reality, such as languages. In Barfield, for example, it is his
organic thinking that gives us the mobile and plastic pictures such as
are found in Speaker's Meaning.

So we need to proceed from organic thinking (Theory) to moral
(spiritual) thinking (the Philosophy). The latter is naturally
built up out of the former, and the former is a step that cannot be
skipped if we want to be able to stand freely within spiritual
experience. In developing organic thinking we build up capacities
in the will, like learning to ride a bicycle. Once present as
capacities, they can simply be exercised as the problems of the
Philosophy unfold within our introspective experience. As these
develop, and especially as we work with moral imagination, moral
intuition and moral technique, we rise from the renewal of true
imagination (Goetheanism), to the full embrace of true reason, or the
logos-nature of thought (Spiritual Science).

Christ said in the Gospel of John: I am the Way, the Truth and the
Life. In that moral reasoning learns to apprehend the truth, it
is actually apprehending Christ, for Truth is not just a qualitative
characteristic of Reality that rests in the Being of Christ, Himself,
but exists because of the Being-nature of that same Reality.
Truth is moral, and it is only the moral in us that can approach truth.

Coleridge grasped this with his perception of the functional organism
of the soul (or as Barfield describes it: his - Coleridge's -
psychology) as: Sense, Fancy,
Understanding, Understanding,
Imagination, and Reason. Humanity has been moving, since the Age
of the Sentient Soul, ever deeper into its own nature, such that now we
stand on the threshold of knowledge of the Imagination and Reason in
their full reality. Via Steiner, Michael guides us through Sophia
into Christ, and A Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe's World
Conception (written at the beginning of the current Michael Age) is the
gate and starting point for that journey.

notes:

(1) Reference the "world of ideas": The philosophy of Plato
conceived of Ideas has having an existence independent of the human
being, and among modern platonists (those whose experience leads them
to considering that at least mathematical ideas of independent
existence), we would find Einstein, Godel and Penrose.